A little Hayden update

With all these crazy adventures in the last couple of weeks one might ask, how is Hayden doing? He is doing great and growing like a weed! Jenn's mom was gracious enough to watch over him the week we were in Mexico. So this post is devoted soley to our little man. Here are some recent pics...

1977 What a year!

I need to go backwards for the next couple of posts to cover a couple of fun adventures that we had been on before our big adventure to Mexico. The first one that comes to mind is Natalie Ritchie's 30th birthday. My best friend Steve is married to Natalie who was born in 1977. So what a more fitting way to have a 30th birthday by dressing up like it was 1977. This night was fantastic, and I must mention I had a chance to experience the nicest home audio set up I have ever listened to! Oh what a night...

Hola from Playa del Carmen!

We have just a couple of minutes but wanted to say a quick hello and share some photos. The first one is of Mister Whiskers dancing with my wife, and as you can see they are "en fuego!" Then we were witness to a beautiful fire dance, that was amazing. We will be posting many more pictures when we return, but this last one was in Coba. Shortly after this photo was taken we climbed to the top. It was a great experience. After that, we cooled off at Grand Cenote. I will post more pictures on this later, but it too was a very cool experience. Now we are off to see Matt and Sol get married! This has been an incredible week and I can't wait to share more amazing experiences on this blog as soon as we get back!

Great to see friends

We were so excited to see some very dear friends this weekend. We have all been friends since our days working at The Hudson in NYC. Tracy, Hunter, and Megan visited us from NJ this weekend. It was great to see them as the last time was over two years ago! We were all part of the opening staff at the Hudson Cafeteria way back in October 2000. This is also where I met Jenn my wife. We have had a great time catching up on old stories and checking out the local sites. When showing people around town, this almost always means a trip to "Pueblos." Pueblos, is our favorite Mexican restaurant in Dahlonega, and it is located right near the historical square. After a fantastic dinner it was time to read Hunter a bedtime story and finish the evening with a glass of wine and share fun memories of our lives in the big apple.

Here are few pics from the weekend so far....

TGIF

Well, okay it's actually Saturday evening, but I wanted to use that title because this Saturday Jenn and I and Hayden took my grandmother out to dinner at TGI Fridays. I can't remember the last time we have had a chance to take grandma out on the town. She thought Friday's was the perfect spot to have a great dinner, and she was right. It is always nice getting a chance to hang out with family, and this was the first time she got to see Hayden outside of my parents house. Thanks grandma for a great evening, look forward to doing it again soon.

Hayden's first Halloween...

I wonder how much scarier Halloween is when you are 10 weeks old. I don't think Hayden recognized his mommy once her wig was on. But Hayden was brave nonetheless and ventured downtown to our friends fantastic Halloween party. We never get to see Mark, Erin, Andrew, or Rachel as much as we like, and we never get to see them at the same time! What a great party! Thanks Mark and Erin for being such great hosts!

We are the Champions...

After a great workshop in Asheville with Corey and crew, I hurried back to Atlanta to try and make our final Upper AA AHL hockey game. I was able to get on the ice after the first shift and we won! It was a great season with a great group of guys are here are a couple pics.

Hi Daddy!

So while Adam is up in NC Hayden and I are enjoying a few days with Nana! Nana is my mom - she lives in DC. As usual when she visits we get started on more projects than we could ever finish! This visit we are getting started on prepping the house to sell! Know anyone that needs a great lake house? We have decided that moving a little closer to the city would make life, work and social activities a little easier! We love this house and hopefully will do a 360 later in life and find another one like it - when we work a little less and have time to really enjoy it. So mom, Hayden and I have been replacing light fixtures, sprucing up and remodeling a bathroom.....ok well mom and I are. Hayden just hangs out being adorable... but hey...do what you do best right!
Here is dad's newest pic of Hayden James! Back to work!

Jenn

Rockstar's spotted in Asheville

One of the great things working for Pictage is that I get an opportunity to meet with tons of photographers like myself. This is a great perk. This week I am in Asheville, NC visiting my friend Corey McNabb while he conducts a 4 (plus) day workshop. Besides, getting to see some friends I haven't seen for a while, hi Amber, I had a chance to meet some new faces as well. Tom Flint is out of upstate New York. That's right Sam and David, if you guys have any friends that need an excellent wedding photographer in your area, he is worth checking out! I also got a chance to hang out with Ty Miller who is from my neck of the woods. He is another wonderful photographer and you can click on any of their names to check out their sites. I don't want to give anything away from the day except to say it was fun to go and capture some fun images in the afternoon thanks to our super willing and able models, Jon (of Jon Leidel photography) and Anna. Here are a couple of pics along with some fun ones at dinner...

Last but not least, I wanted to say thank you to Larry Crandall of White Glove First Edition Books for the great dinner.

I think that about covers it for today.

Blue

My favorite color is blue. Every once in a while I photograph an image that has a blue that I really like. Here are two of them. I have been talking to my dad a bunch about how to get the perfect blue sky shot for his vacation to Europe. Time of day, f stop, ISO setting etc. These are some of the better ones that I have captured.

The last day of the Impala SS

It's true. I sold my 1996 Impala SS with under 100k miles on Saturday. It was a sad day. My father had an Impala when he was younger and I proudly carried on that Linke tradition by owning one in college up until now. I had that car for over 11 years. That is a long relationship any way you look at it. I will always have tons of fun memories about that car and it's occupants. I would love to bring up a couple of those fond memories with some of my pals like Anders, Heller, and Hoblit, but I am not sure what the statue of limitations is in Minnesota so I will refrain. This is a picture as I am waiting in the parking lot for the new owner to arrive and take new ownership.

I've been a bad blogger

A few months ago, Jenn and I were getting pretty good at keeping up with our blog. After August 22nd, things have gotten more tricky as far as finding time to blog. I know that is no excuse so I am trying to make a come back starting today. For now on, I will make an effort to post at least once a week if not more. This post is a bit scattered. The first image I want to share with everyone is what our bay looks like when the water level is down 14 feet.

The black line I have drawn in is the normal water level in a non drought year. This image was taken a couple of weeks ago when the water was down 12 feet. Doesn't matter now, as you can see, the dock is on the mud.

I wish I could say that having a newborn around the house is the only reason we have been bad about blogging, but the fact is, work has picked up as well. I have photographed a wedding for the past 6 weekends in a row, and Jenn has been juggling Hayden and getting back to work.

Finally, to prove I really have been photographing a lot of weddings lately, here is one of my favorites from this summer. Click Here.

Talk to you soon,

There are no words.......

I know we are WAY overdue for a post about our little man Hayden but where do you begin! It has been such a whirlwind for the past 5 weeks! In a nutshell - we are so in love and having such fun getting to know this new little person!

We couldn't have survived the past 6 weeks without the generous help of our friends and family! My mom held us together before and after the big day - how she makes it all seem so easy is beyond me. Since then Adam's folks have been ready with extra arms to hold baby and generous helping hands.

As Adam was in LA I was pampered by two of my favorite women - my best friend Sarah and my big sis Kim. They were amazing - and worked way too hard but left me with more sleep, a smile on my face and a very tidy home! Along the way we also had friends bring dinner, bring thier camera and bring such great company! We are so blessed and SO THANKFUL.... and I have every intention of stating that in the thank you notes I swear I will get to..... soon.... I mean it!
One of our recent visitors was Jean Shifrin - she is one of our photographers for The Decisive Moment and a dear friend. She brought her camera along and despite Hayden's less than cheery disposition that day- captured the little man we are so in love with! What a looker :)

Jean has such a gift with little ones and shoots a pretty fantastic wedding too!
Jean's website is www.shifrinphotography.com

We will try to be better with our updates as we adjust to life with a little one!

Much love!

Mommy

Baby Hayden arrives!

In this corner weighing in at 9 lbs 10.5 oz introducing Hayden James Linke! He was born into this world at 2:39pm Wednesday August 22nd. There will be a slideshow update later this week. But for now I just want to say thank you to all of our friends and family for their thoughts and prayers and support. It was a day that changed my life and I give special thanks to a close friend of mine Mark Adams for documenting Hayden's birth and capturing images that will always bring us back to those emotional and energizing moments. Here are a couple of quick pictures...

This is just a short post to let everyone know that we made it through ok.. If you need to some more pics immediately, you can check out LaCour and they have posted some beautiful pics. This is our friend’s blog and I think it is the second or third post down.


Talk to everyone soon,


Adam